"I dumped my girlfriend because of her friends, not because of anything she did."

I've been with my gf for just over a year and overall she's a nice person but her friend's are absolutely cancerous. The main ringleader has a kid and muscled her long term boyfriend into an "open relationship".

She parties severals times a week and hooks up with other dudes whilst the pathetic womry doormat of a boyfriend looks after their 2 year old. The other one routinely cheats on her fiance and even slept with one of my bros the first time my friends and my girlfriend's friends hung out.

They've pushed her into starting an onlyfans but my girlfriend justifiably tells them to kick rocks because she's in a relationship. This only results in them throwing "controlling boyfriend" accusations my way.

My girlfriends last two boyfriends were complete deadbeats, one of whom was a recovering addict, so this is the only "normal" relationship she's been in for the past 5 years. I knew it was only be a matter of time before she caved. You can't be around serial cheaters and dirtbags without dabbling with it yourself at some point.

And I can't exactly tell her to cut off her childhood friends without some sort of resentment festering, so I did us both a favour and ended the relationship. She freaked out but I just told her I was in a "dark place" and couldn't be in a relationship. I didn't have it in me to tell her it was because her friends are actual human toilets. This isn't the first girl I've broken up with because their friends.

Edit: Okay so I've seen a lot of people ask why I don't just tell her the truth. But what would that accomplish exactly? I'm not planning on getting back with her and telling her that the reason I wanted to break up was because of her toxic friends would only drive a wedge between them at a time when she needs all the support she can get.

I get the whole "just tell her the truth" thing, but that would just cause more harm if she thinks the people she thought she could turn to were the reason she's dealing with a breakup in the first place.

Edit 2: A lot of you seem to think that once I told her the reason, she'd suddnly open her eyes and see her friends for what they were. That's not happening. She was around when most of the cheating and scumminess occured and even lost her mind at me once for suggesting I tell the girl's fiance. She's been friends with them since they were 4-6yrs old, cutting them off would be next to impossible for her.

Edit 3: Although my girlfriend never did anything directly to me, she'd lose her sh!t and would side with them whenever I brought up her friend's questionable behaviour. She wasn't an innocent bystander.

She directly or indirectly lied on her friend's behalf and covered for them a bunch of times, "oh Jen stayed over at my place, she just watched movies and drank with me and OP" etc. Bare in mind some poor sap brought the girl she always lied for a roughtly 10k engagement ring. She's not a poor victim lol

Commenters weighed in:

NALGENE2 said:

We do not know what went on in your head, and if you felt it was right to move on for whatever reason then I respect that.

Pursuing a relationship with this person may have caused a lot of misery for everyone. Okay one option would be to talk about it to your partner which I think lots of people would more likely do, but it's also okay to step out of things if you believe it's the correct way to proceed.

FaithlessnessNo9625 said:

Pretty sure she’s already aware of these behaviors from her friends, and if she is and still chooses to associate with them, then she likely would’ve gone that route with you as well. Some alcohol, some substances, some peer pressure…you dodged a grenade, my dude.

[deleted] said:

You're smart dude. Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future. It really was a ticking time bomb.

UPDATE:

So I told the fiance who was being cheated. I found a lot of incriminating sh!t in my text convos with my ex and a few damning photos. I got ahold of his number and sent him EVERYTHING. He called me and we had an hour long conversation where I basically broke down the entire cheating timeline for him, "she wasn't with us on the 14th, she was at XZY's place" etc.

I've been waiting a long time to tell this guy that he was about to sign his life away to a serial cheater and I deeply resent the fact that I had to stay quite about this. Poor dude broke down, it's hard listening to a grown man cry like that. He had his suspicions but never had any real proof. Looks like the wedding's off and his cheating ex-fiance will need to start looking for a new place to live.

I invited him out with me and my bros this weekend because he met most of his "friends" through his fiance and I'm 110% sure they'll all ditch him or try to gaslight him into reconciling things. He and the other guy were the real victims in this situation, not my ex. I don't care about the fall-out, her and her friends can do their worst.

The whole thing made me realize what a monster my ex was for covering this up for so long and I'm disgusted at myself for being complicit. She and her friends deserve each other.